A Pair of Blazing Fast Solid-State Drives

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Or so goes the conventional wisdom, which was certainly born out in our review of the Samsung and Super Talent solid-state drives (SSDs).

Solid-state drives, built from high performance flash memory, have become quite the darling among the ultra-portable notebook PC set. They’re also useful in desktop PCs, when you need fast read performance in extreme environmental conditions. But their price tends to preclude widespread use.

On the other hand, if you need good write performance, the narrative has been: avoid solid-state drives. As it turns out, good write performance can be had—you just have to be willing to pay for it.

Recently, Imation send us a pair of their 64GB SSDs, based on MTRON’s 7000 Pro SSD technology. These are very high end SSDs, so we wanted to compare them to something a little more mainstream. DVNation, an online reseller of solid-state drives, loaned us a pair of MTRON Mobi SSDs. These are also 64GB units, but are rated for slower speeds than the 7000 Pro—but they also cost quite a bit less.

Of course, “high end” and “a little more mainstream” are relative terms, here. The 7000 Pros, as distributed by Imation, cost around $2,000 each, while the 64GB MTRON Mobi drives will set you back just shy of $1,300 apiece from DVNation.

Let’s take a look at these drives, both in single drive and RAID 0 configurations. Continued…

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